This week, witness Pelosi going on her all-about-me inauguration tour, which is designed to rebrand her as a regular Catholic grandma from Baltimore. Members of the middle classes never have to mount campaign swings to prove how regular they are, but these upper-bracket types can't help themselves, and they always lay it on too thick...

Here is a photo of Nancy Pelosi's childhood home in Baltimore:

Nancy Pelosi grew up at the far end of this block of Albemarle Street in Baltimore. San Francisco Chronicle photo by Michael Macor.

Here's a photo of the Bushes' summer house on Walker Point:

Daughters of ethnic Democratic mayors in the 1950s did get driven to school. But hereditary plutocrats they were not.

As one colleague said on Friday apropos of another issue: "David Brooks? You're using a tenured Harvard statistician to refute David Brooks?! You don't use a tenured statistician, you use a fly-swatter!"

Can the New York Times survive a decade with columns of this low quality?

This week, witness Pelosi going on her all-about-me inauguration tour, which is designed to rebrand her as a regular Catholic grandma from Baltimore. Members of the middle classes never have to mount campaign swings to prove how regular they are, but these upper-bracket types can't help themselves, and they always lay it on too thick...

Here is a photo of Nancy Pelosi's childhood home in Baltimore:

Nancy Pelosi grew up at the far end of this block of Albemarle Street in Baltimore. San Francisco Chronicle photo by Michael Macor.

Here's a photo of the Bushes' summer house on Walker Point:

Daughters of ethnic Democratic mayors in the 1950s did get driven to school. But hereditary plutocrats they were not.

As one colleague said on Friday apropos of another issue: "David Brooks? You're using a tenured Harvard statistician to refute David Brooks?! You don't use a tenured statistician, you use a fly-swatter!"

Can the New York Times survive a decade with columns of this low quality?